U.S.S. Mariner » Jeff Sullivanhttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner
Seattle Mariners news, analysis and commentary from U.S.S. Mariner.Fri, 31 Jul 2015 00:00:34 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Mariners Trade Yoervis Medina For Mike Zunino Off Dayshttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/05/19/mariners-trade-yoervis-medina-for-mike-zunino-off-days/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/05/19/mariners-trade-yoervis-medina-for-mike-zunino-off-days/#commentsTue, 19 May 2015 22:08:59 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=21326Officially, the deal is Yoervis Medina to the Cubs in exchange for catcher Welington Castillo. And, indeed, that’s what’s happening — the Mariners are giving up the Medina asset, and they’re receiving a whole new person, who will have a locker in the clubhouse and everything. But this isn’t a deal that’s really about Medina, from the Mariners’ perspective, nor is it really about Castillo. Castillo’s positive quality is that, okay, he’s fine enough. So he’s a catcher actually capable of letting Mike Zunino get some rest.

There’s any number of reasons why the Mariners have been relatively disappointing, and I suppose you don’t have to look much further than Robinson Cano, who, I’ll remind you, has another eight years after this year. And Dustin Ackley sucks, even more than he’s ever sucked, and you wonder if he’s okay or if he’s been replaced by one of those alien people-impersonators from Men In Black. But at some point you get to Mike Zunino, who has yet to make offensive progress. In fairness, he’s actually been one of the team’s better hitters in May. But, in May, he also hasn’t walked. His approach has become less disciplined. His last base on balls was 18 strikeouts ago.

Zunino, basically, looks like Zunino looked last season. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, depending on the day you see him. There was talk in spring training he was learning to use the opposite field, but actually he’s pulled more baseballs this year than he did last year or the year before. The defense? Zunino is good at defense. He knows how to catch, and he seems to know how to handle a pitching staff. Big responsibilities, for a player his age. But, catching is hard. There’s a reason why catchers tend to develop slower offensively than other guys. They have a lot going on, and one theory is that Zunino is just too exhausted to improve.

This year he’s fifth in baseball in innings caught. Last year he was fourth. There have been six games this year Zunino didn’t start, but he’s still played in four of them. A catcher on a roster with two catchers can never completely take a day off, because you don’t know if the other guy might get hurt, but there are degrees of rest, of peace of mind. Zunino’s been given a heavy workload, and Jesus Sucre couldn’t give him much of a breather. Sucre, we know, is a skilled defensive catcher. We all liked his framing, back when the Mariners didn’t have a framer. But Sucre swings the bat like a head of lettuce you put a baseball bat next to. You don’t want a Sucre in the lineup on back-to-back days. You don’t want Sucre at the plate in a high-leverage late-inning situation. You pinch-hit for a Sucre. When you pinch-hit for a catcher, you have to bring in the other catcher.

Welington Castillo is not good. Welington Castillo is not bad. You now understand Welington Castillo. He’s not as good a defender as Sucre. He’s certainly not as good a defender as Zunino. He’ll lose these pitchers some strikes. But, he makes a decent amount of contact. From time to time, he’ll draw a walk. Last year he hit a home run 432 feet. The year before he reached 443. Castillo projects as a slightly below-average hitter, which is not unlike what he’s been for his career. He just turned 28 a few weeks ago. And, significantly, last year Castillo played in 110 games. That followed a 113-game campaign. Granted, the Cubs went 86-124 in his starts, and 53-61 in games he didn’t start, and that’s troubling, but there’s also a lot of noise in those numbers and the Cubs were bad. Castillo is adequate, maybe a third-tier backstop, and he’s handled a regular major-league workload while also handling being a reserve.

For now, the hope is that having Castillo can buy Zunino some rest. He shouldn’t need to play as often as he does, and the team will be more comfortable using Castillo more than it used Sucre. And that could be important for Zunino, as rest might be able to keep him from getting into and developing bad habits. More bad habits, I guess. With more rest, there’s more focus. With more focus, there might be better results. With Welington Castillo, Mike Zunino can afford to relax on designated days.

And if, in time, it still doesn’t look like Zunino is getting better, Castillo’s a more capable stopgap than Sucre. Either Castillo could take more of Zunino’s playing time, or Zunino could get demoted, and then Sucre or somebody else could come up while Zunino tries to learn some lessons in Tacoma. From the sounds of things, the organization is pretty committed to trying to get Zunino to work out in the bigs, but maybe that’s stubbornness, or maybe things just haven’t gotten bad enough. One should hope that they never do, but things can have a way of going wrong, and minds can be changed by enough swings and enough misses.

On Tuesday, the Mariners added a new catcher, and it seems to me to be about the old catcher, who’s also something of a new catcher. He’s a young catcher in whom the Mariners believe, and he’s a young catcher the Mariners think should be a part of the long-term core. Before that happens, the catcher needs to not suck when he’s hitting, and maybe he just needs a little more rest. We’re easily impressed by those who soldier through fatigue, but seldom is it actually helpful. Your body needs time to restore. Mike Zunino is presumably no different.

As for Medina going away? He’s got live stuff and bad command. He’s missing a couple miles per hour now, relative to before, and the Cubs think it’s probably mechanical. If Medina were to put everything together, he could close. If Medina were to put just enough together, he’d be last year’s Medina. Last year’s Medina was no one’s favorite bullpen arm. These guys are everywhere, and it’s impossible to predict which ones will have futures and which ones will frustrate through to retirement. If it makes you feel better, Medina probably wasn’t going to find his strikes as a Mariner. One of the upsides in not believing in your own player development.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/05/19/mariners-trade-yoervis-medina-for-mike-zunino-off-days/feed/0Roll The Diehttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/05/08/roll-the-die-2/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/05/08/roll-the-die-2/#commentsFri, 08 May 2015 21:59:10 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=21183Okay, we’re back to do it again. The Mariners are fresh off a skid of, I don’t know, sucking, and at present they sit with the second-worst record in the American League. It’s time for me to issue a response, which means it’s time for me to leave the tenor of said response up to the whims of Microsoft Excel. To refresh your memory, here’s the first time this happened, when we all got to learn a cool thing about owls. The necessary details:

I’m here to talk about the Mariners in some way or another, though I’m 17% here to talk about owls. What’s there to be said about this baseball team, or owls? Let me roll the die.

Random number: 1!

Unrestrained Emotional Overreaction

As I’ve sat here, pretty much exactly here, following this compost heap of a baseball team, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked aloud, what the shit is this shit? It’s like the Mariners are playing roster problem Whac-A-Mole, where for everything they try to solve, another problem pops up somewhere else. Got Nelson Cruz to fix the lineup? Robinson Cano hurts the lineup. Add J.A. Happ to stabilize the rotation? Time for Taijuan Walker, miscalibrated pitching machine. Hey, Seth Smith is all right! But now the bullpen is more afraid of outs than Dustin Ackley is of hits. For good measure, we’ve also got a team that for whatever reason isn’t even playing fundamentally sound. The symbol of the season to date is Cano inexplicably wandering off third base. Look how close the Mariners can get! They don’t want to get any closer. The Mariners are comfortable observing good baseball, but they’ll be damned if they’re going to participate.

“Close.” That’s been kind of a buzzword. The Mariners over one stretch played 19 consecutive games decided by three runs or less. Since that ended, they’ve played four one-run games in a row, the streak interrupted only by a delightful drubbing at the hands of the Astros in a game the Mariners once led by three. People find consolation in close losses. “They’re right there,” it gets repeated. “One break and it’s a whole other result.” Yeah, that’s the thing about losses. Losses are basically just wins but with things that are bad instead of good. Every Dustin Ackley groundout to second is a matter of feet away from being a Dustin Ackley single into right-center! He’s practically Trout. The Mariners have the second-worst record in the American League. On the plus side, they have the second-worst run differential in the American League. Thank god for BaseRuns. Oh, the Mariners are 11-17? Well, according to BaseRuns, they should be 12-16. Plan the parade!

People like to point out that the Angels are a glorified one-man team. Well that might be, but if I say the Phillies are shitty, that doesn’t mean the Mariners aren’t shitty. Felix has started six times this season, and the Mariners have won six games. Which is outstanding, except for the fact that all of the other games have taken place and haven’t been rained out. Being 6-0 with Felix means the Mariners have also been 5-17 with not-Felix, and, I gotta tell you, most of the games aren’t Felix games, although at some point maybe the team should consider starting him every game day just to see. Have to try something, right? That one commercial might as well have been foreshadowing. We know Felix would be game for it. We know this because Felix is a very confident individual, and because Felix is stupid. Why else would he commit himself to the baseball-team equivalent of a dog standing up on its hind legs? It’s almost like the dog is a regular person, except for it being a dog.

You know who’s in first place right now? Of course you do, it’s the team that just recently swept this team. The Astros have almost twice as many wins as losses, which is interesting because just a few years ago they had twice as many losses as wins. The Astros bottomed out in 2011 and they’re already back and looking at a playoff spot. They’re already stocked with talent, and the problem with promoting Carlos Correa is they might have too many good players. The Mariners bottomed out in 2004, but I’m sure success is right around the corner. The Astros, despite all the mockery, despite all the disastrous PR, have lapped the Mariners, who’ve been looking for room to play Willie Bloomquist. Who’ve been stuck on Dustin Ackley, and Logan Morrison. Hey, Morrison’s hot! This time it has to be for real. And if something happens, there’s Jesus Montero. The dream of 2009 is alive in Seattle. The future was bright, and instead of wearing shades, the Mariners blinded themselves.

It’s been fun to watch Nelson Cruz obliterate baseballs and put spectators in mortal danger. And because he only ever hits solo dingers no one has to come away feeling too bad about themselves. It’s good theater and a good distraction, the Mariners saying “look over there!” whenever we think we smell something funny. Cruz is fleeting positivity, a puddle of water on a California sidewalk. Look, right there — that’s the solution to everything. That’s all that anybody needs. But the puddle will inevitably evaporate, just like all the other puddles. That’s what puddles do in that kind of environment.

That’s the root of all of this. You think the answer is other players, better players? It’s tempting. Alluring. Easy. Here is a roster, and here is a roster with a few better players. Voila, a good roster! That can be how it works elsewhere, but that’s not how it works here. The Mariners’ problem isn’t talent, and it hasn’t been about talent for years. The Mariners have as much talent as any other team. But there’s talent, and there’s converting that talent into success, and where other teams are locked in a space race, the Mariners are stuck in the Bronze Age. They can’t get good players out of good skills. Worse, good players seem to deteriorate, like they’re being drained. Ackley was automatic until he wasn’t. Mike Zunino has only gotten worse. Justin Smoak never did anything. Jesus Montero never did anything. Taijuan Walker isn’t progressing. James Paxton is frustrating. Austin Jackson is somehow hilariously bad. Robinson Cano’s OPS starts with a 6, and this is Year Two of a guaranteed 10. Kyle Seager was the one exception, the one miracle, but even he now seems defeated. By the way, D.J. Peterson is slugging .301. Alex Jackson is slugging .194. Nelson Cruz’s performance is almost adorable. Look at him, try to ignore his context. He’s so bold, so full of hope. It’s futile. It’s like life itself — in the end, death always wins. Cruz has been an oasis, but he’s going to Mariner it. It won’t be his fault, even though we’ll pretend it is.

Our exception is Felix Hernandez. In Felix, we have the perfect player, and the perfect pitcher, the perfect star and the perfect one-time prospect. You couldn’t possibly ask for more. He’s reached his ceiling and then some, and he’s been marketed so well the stadium is sometimes full of people in matching t-shirts chanting for him in unison. Between ourselves and Felix, it’s hard to say who carries the greater burden. Long ago, when the Mariners were shredding all their young arms, we asked for just one to survive and were given a curse. We got what we asked for. Felix is the victim. Rooting is a struggle between wanting more wins around Felix, and wishing for Felix to be granted his freedom. It makes no difference. There will never be enough wins. There will never be freedom.

There will never be freedom. This is our cage. If we look in the mirror, it’s almost like we have company.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/05/08/roll-the-die-2/feed/0Roll The Diehttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/17/roll-the-die/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/17/roll-the-die/#commentsFri, 17 Apr 2015 23:20:10 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=21008The Mariners are in a state right now. They’re 3-6, tied for the worst record in the American League, and they’re fresh off a road series sweep. It was a road series sweep, granted, at the hands of probably the best team in baseball, but then a sweep is a sweep, and, worse, it was a series the Mariners easily could’ve won with just a little bit better execution. The Dodgers lucked out by missing Felix Hernandez. The Mariners lucked out by missing Clayton Kershaw. One guy the Mariners didn’t miss was David Huff. Didn’t matter; Mariners lost. No one looks good after getting swept, no matter the location and no matter the opponent, and you’d like the Mariners at some point to start clicking and playing cleaner baseball. If they don’t shape up soon, they could lose control of this whole thing.

The Mariners are in a state I feel obligated to respond to. I know my role, and I’m supposed to chime in when people are getting emotional and reactionary. But I have to tell you: writing about a single team can be difficult, especially when you’ve been doing it for well more than a decade. You start to feel like you’re getting predictable, and you start to feel like everything you want to say, you’ve already said. In fairness, pretty much everything we say everywhere is something we’ve already said, because all we are are warm-blooded recycling machines, but I’m conscious of balance. What’s the sense in writing something if everyone already knows what you’re going to write? You have to stay fresh.

So I’ve developed a little tool, intended to help myself, and intended therefore to help you, the reader. The idea: I can identify times when I want to write a response to recent events. That part’s easy. It’s a feel thing. But then there’s the matter of the content. And what shapes the content is the angle of the content. The tool I’ve developed determines the reaction angle, and it’s completely out of my hands. Following, an explanatory image:

What we have here is an image of a six-sided die. Beside, smaller images of all six sides, with corresponding recommended article approaches. So, when I want to write about something, I can just roll the die, and then that guides how I’m going to follow through. Now, to be completely honest, I don’t actually have any dice in my apartment. But I do have Microsoft Excel in my apartment, so what I’ve done is just use a simple random number generator, picking from between 1 – 6. There’s something I want to address? I generate a random number, and then the tiny spreadsheet tells me how I’m going to address it. The words are entirely up to me, but the overall message is determined by electrons and circuits and whatever the hell goes on underneath my laptop keyboard.

It’s time to put this to use. The Mariners are 3-6. They were once 3-3, but they just got swept in agonizing fashion by the Dodgers. The closer looks like a wreck, the rotation looks not even a little bit better, and the offense is pretty much entirely Nelson Cruz dingers off the end of the bat. People are freaking out. This year was supposed to be different. Everything was supposed to be in place. Observers in Arizona predicted that the Mariners would be the best team in the league. Almost to a man, the team has stumbled out of the gate. What’s to be said? Let me roll the die.

Random number: 6!

COOL OWL FACT

A group of owls is called a parliament, a wisdom, a stare, or a study. As for baby owls? Baby owls are known as owlets.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/17/roll-the-die/feed/0Meanwhile, In The AL Westhttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/10/meanwhile-in-the-al-west/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/10/meanwhile-in-the-al-west/#commentsSat, 11 Apr 2015 01:02:46 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20955Bummed about the Mariners losing two in a row to the Angels, after a promising opening day? That’s fine! We all are. On the other hand, at least the Mariners aren’t currently doing their damnedest to throw one of their most expensive players under the bus. Hit it, Arte Moreno.

Moreno, asked if he can say Hamilton will play another game with #Angels: “I will not say that.”

Kind of scummy, in that the Angels are clearly just trying to rid themselves of a problem contract, without showing any compassion for the player. They knew what they were signing, and they went ahead with it — Moreno and Josh Hamilton shook hands in the introductory press conference. I’ll say this, though: specifically because Hamilton had a known history, it would make sense for the Angels to try to include some protective language, if that’s even allowed. And then, you know, it’s their right to try to enforce it, or anything else, since contracts are contracts. Anything mutually agreed to becomes enforceable at any point. It’s just, sayyyyyy, what’s that?

Oh, I get it, Moreno. You’re a liar! You know, like an asshole! Doesn’t mean he was lying today — could mean he was lying a few years ago. But, it doesn’t get much more black and white than this. Arte Moreno directly contradicted himself, and there’s one thing that’s changed over time — Josh Hamilton’s circumstances. At one point, he was an All-Star outfielder. At another point, he’s a massive disappointment fresh off a relapse. I wonder what might be causing Arte Moreno to treat him differently?

To be truthful, every team in baseball would probably act like this. I mean, not like this, but every team would have interest in voiding a bad contract, if at all possible. The big difference: other teams wouldn’t be doing this in the public arena. The Angels are making themselves look like total pricks, and though that does nothing to improve the Mariners’ odds of winning the 2015 World Series, it’s a kind of schadenfreude. We’re used to our organization being the one that looks stupid and tactless. Now we’re not even the second-worst offender in our own division. How does Arte Moreno sleep at night? On a comfortable bed in a large house, with impossible amounts of money to his name. But, also, he sucks.

Oh, and, before I go, Derek Holland will be out two months with a shoulder injury. On the plus side for the Rangers, Ryan Rua and Shin-Soo Choo were also removed from a game with injuries. Their injuries appear more minor. That is literally the plus side for the Rangers right now. They have injuries that could’ve been worse.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/10/meanwhile-in-the-al-west/feed/0Mariners Halfway To Going Wire-To-Wirehttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/07/mariners-halfway-to-going-wire-to-wire/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/07/mariners-halfway-to-going-wire-to-wire/#commentsTue, 07 Apr 2015 08:22:38 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20912While I don’t necessarily agree with those who argue that Opening Day of the baseball season ought to be a national holiday, I do, at least, understand the sentiment. The wait is so long and the anticipation is so great, and the instant you see a baseball stadium get all dressed up, you slip into this warm state of comfort you forgot you ever felt. This is the feeling of belonging; this is the feeling of being at home. It doesn’t even matter where you are. It just matters what’s happening. Being in the car with a baseball game on feels more like home than home on any January 10th. All isn’t quite right, but it’s closer than it was.

Because it’s such a treasured event, and because at the end of the day we’re all just baseball fans, you hate for people to come away from the occasion disappointed. In a just world, Opening Day would be kind to fans of all 30 teams. Save the letdowns and the devastation for at least another game. Look around the league, and you see the Brewers lost 10-0. The White Sox lost 10-1, and the Rangers lost 8-0, very nearly getting no-hit. It doesn’t seem fair. You want there to be another way, a better way, but you just can’t always make everyone happy.

Which made this Mariners opener a particular treat. Usually, in a baseball game, half the fans come away happy, and half the fans come away sad. Rough for that latter half, on the first day of the season. But what we saw on Monday, that game had something for everybody. Everyone gets to consider their Opening Day a success. Angels fans got to watch their best player hit a home run, and then effectively hit another with a great play in the field. And Mariners fans got to watch their best player beat the crap out of the Angels. Thumbs-up all around. We’re all friends.

Look, I don’t have a great way to work this in, so this is going to function as a segue. The home opener in Safeco is always a production, and this year gave Safeco the rare opportunity to host both the home and season openers at once. As has been the norm, Mariners players jogged in from the outfield as they were introduced, with fog machines adding to the drama of the affair. As somebody who has written papers in high school, I understand that, if you look hard enough, you can identify hints of symbolism everywhere. There were definite hints in the intros. Here we see Robinson Cano, preparing to jog down the carpet:

The curtains part, and the fog drifts, revealing Cano as he lifts his head and prepares to be greeted. Everything fell exactly into place. There is, before Cano, a clear path forward, unobstructed by anything peripheral. For Robinson Cano, it’s always come easy. For Robinson Cano, it always looks easy. In truth, he’s the result of inconceivable talent and preparation, but when you see him he’s smooth as a man who knows he’s already won.

Two names later, it was Kyle Seager’s turn:

Kyle Seager always has to do shit the hard way. Curtains didn’t part? Guess he’ll part the damned curtains. Doesn’t look cool. Looks like he’s getting out of the shower. No one looks cool when they’re getting out of the shower. Kyle Seager never looks cool. Never will. It’s just not his “thing”. Doesn’t mean he can’t also get the job done. Doesn’t mean he can’t also be excellent. He’ll just always look like he’s working harder for it. Kyle Seager’s never going to not look like his middle name is Duerr.

So, that’s how Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager emerged from behind a Mariners curtain. Later, a game was played.

Years ago — years and years ago — there was an argument over which pitcher was better, between Felix Hernandez and Jered Weaver. And while Felix had the advantage of his debut, the reality was that the argument was justifiable. I mean, we used to argue about a lot of silly things. We used to get really emotional when we’d talk about Roberto Petagine. I remember that Felix/Weaver stuff. It was very much a “then” argument, and there were strong arguments to be made in Weaver’s favor. He really was an ace at one time. Felix, for his part, disappointed, as he took some time to get things to click. Felix had the stuff; Weaver had the run-prevention results. One thing the argument didn’t discuss much was the future.

And I don’t know what would’ve been argued. I don’t know how those futures would’ve been projected. Was a time when everyone thought Felix’s arm was a ticking time bomb. We’ve come a long way. But now we have the benefit of knowing exactly how things have taken place. Felix doesn’t throw as hard as he used to. That was never going to keep up. Thankfully, he figured out command, and he figured out a changeup, and he’s maybe the best starting pitcher in his league. And Weaver? Weaver doesn’t throw as hard as he used to. Today I saw him throw a pitch above 86 miles per hour, once. It seems like it should’ve been painfully obvious even a decade ago that Weaver would need to develop pinpoint command to keep things going smoothly. That command doesn’t seem to be with him. He’s working with a razor-thin margin of error. Today he looked like a guy who’d deserve the 6.00 ERA that’ll be by his name at least another few days.

Seth Smith doubled in the first. Fastball, 82, over the middle.

Austin Jackson doubled in the third. Curveball, 65, over the middle.

Smith tripled in the third. Curveball, 66, over the middle.

Cano singled in the third. Fastball, 83, over the middle.

Dustin Ackley homered in the fifth. Fastball, 81, over the middle.

Brad Miller singled in the fifth. Changeup, 74, at the belt.

Smith doubled in the fifth. Fastball, 83, at the belt.

You can’t count Weaver out, and you certainly can’t judge by one game at the start of a long season, but this was a game that would be thrown by a pitcher about to be cut. This version of Jered Weaver, throwing away his track record, might not get a major-league contract as a free agent. We just watched something like a right-handed Barry Zito with the flu, and Weaver used to be a guy who succeeded in part because he got hitters to swing and hit pitches on or beyond the edges. Nothing about Weaver today was about the edges. Except perhaps a career edge. It’s a long way down. Gotta watch your step.

As Weaver gets worse, Felix sustains. I don’t know how he does it, either, but, recognize our fortune. There was a time that Weaver might’ve been better. Imagine that. I know this gets awful jinx-y when you’re discussing two active careers, but look at them side-by-side today. At the moment, there is no comparison, not in stuff and not in ability. Today Felix faced 24 batters. Whiffed 10. Today Weaver faced 25 batters. Whiffed one. It was Mike Zunino, which doesn’t even count.

Once again, Felix coughed one up to Trout on Opening Day, getting a high fastball not high enough. Once again, it was reduced to a footnote, as Felix settled in just as his support did the same. Yeah, this could’ve gone a little differently. Smith’s game-tying triple in the third narrowly avoided Kole Calhoun. Smith’s insurance double in the fifth narrowly avoided a sliding Matt Joyce. With a couple more half-steps, who knows if those get down, and who knows what game we have? But on the other hand, that same sliding Matt Joyce collided with a not-sliding Mike Trout, and while Trout avoided any kind of injury, we’ve seen that play go tits-up. The Mariners were lucky to not have a double taken away. The Angels were lucky to not have their entire season crippled before the first seventh-inning stretch. Fun thought exercise: turn Joyce into would-be outfielder Josh Hamilton. Have Hamilton also not make the catch. This time, have Trout get hurt. Would Hamilton have been released on the spot? Probably not, but I can’t imagine he’d be allowed back in Anaheim.

Maybe that’s not a fun thought exercise. That’s a dreadful thought exercise. Kind of like having the Hamilton, Weaver, Albert Pujols, and C.J. Wilson contracts at the same time. That’s how you get Johnny Giavotella standing in against Felix Hernandez on Opening Day and trying his best.

Not everything went well for the Mariners. If everything went well for the Mariners, they might’ve won by twenty. The point is to make sure enough goes well, and this year, more than any other year recently, “enough” shouldn’t be too difficult a bar to clear. You saw some elements of a playoff team today. They didn’t all chip in as much as they could’ve, but this team has a lot of potential chipper-inners. Roster’s littered with ‘em. Someday Nelson Cruz will probably get a hit.

Nine straight Opening Days, the Mariners have left us smiling. Nine straight Opening Days, I’ve written something to the effect of how, even though it’s incredibly early, every game matters, every single game matters, and when you’re 1-0, that makes it incrementally easier to be there in the playoffs at the end. It’s all about the probability, right? Winning on Opening Day improves the probability. Nine straight Opening Days of this. Try not to worry about what happened after the first eight.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/07/mariners-halfway-to-going-wire-to-wire/feed/0If It Goes Righthttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/04/if-it-goes-right-3/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/04/04/if-it-goes-right-3/#commentsSun, 05 Apr 2015 01:26:10 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20885We tend to forget all of our memes as soon as we adopt new ones. They’re ephemeral things, which can make it a trip when something comes along and jogs your memory. Like, every so often, I’m reminded of Chris Jakubauskas, and then I’m reminded that some people used to call him the Jakubaustrich, and that was as recent as 2009, and that’s always a little bit flooring. Every old meme is ridiculous. We never think of our current memes as ridiculous. Something to think about. Anyway, the reason I’m bringing this up: used to be, for a few years, it was popular to compare the Mariners to the Royals. More than that, it was popular to say the Mariners were the Royals, if perhaps delayed by a year. The two organizations operated the same way, and the two organizations seemed doomed to the same unremarkable fates, the same sequences of the same fourth- and fifth-place finishes. People compared the Mariners to the Royals, and this was intended as a criticism.

Then people stopped. The comparison would’ve taken on new meaning after the Royals got to the World Series. But, well. In hindsight, we should’ve stuck with it. All the bad Mariners were all the bad Royals. The 2014 Mariners were the 2013 Royals. And the 2015 Mariners are the 2014 Royals. The comparison is still alive. It might be stronger than ever. The parallels just aren’t what they used to be, in terms of the takeaway message.

You, me, that guy, this girl, all those people who’ve been milling around SoDo — we’re fans of a good baseball team. This is important. Read that sentence fragment again, and then, read that sentence fragment again. Here, I’ll repeat it: we’re fans of a good baseball team. This is an identity we’re still working to cultivate. It’s the complete opposite of the identity we developed over the course of a long and dark decade. Thing about being irrelevant and disappointing for so long is that you get your thicker psychological skin. Your sense of humor spins off in a very particular direction, as you learn the ins and outs of coping with a pastime that only ever lets you down. We identified with failure. We made jokes at our own expense. We were the sad-sack people who rooted for the sad-sack team, the people others felt bad for, the team nobody hated. The identity we had — the identity in which we found comfort — it’s no longer appropriate. It’s a little like one of those What Not To Wear episodes where the 43-year-old mother of two dresses like she’s in junior high. The mother needs to dress her age. We need to behave in accordance with our circumstances. Nobody feels bad for us. Our team is now hated, by people other than us.

Clearly, this has been a long time coming. The regular season goes for a while. This one was preceded by several months of projections claiming the Mariners would be good. Before that, the Mariners of 2014 very narrowly missed the playoffs. This is by no means an overnight sensation, so we’ve had about a year and a half to recognize our changing situation. But a year and a half is nothing compared to the years we spent asking ourselves why this hobby was a hobby. It’s going to take a long time for it all to sink in. It’s going to take a long time for our identity to re-sequence. What’s the rule with break-ups — one month of recovery for every year you’re together? Might be there’s a similar principle, adjusting to a sports team no longer being really good or really bad. You’re forgiven if you still aren’t used to this, if you still don’t identify with this. Just, be aware of what’s coming. We’re fans of a good baseball team. If it hasn’t yet, this is going to change you.

I’m sure this goes without saying, but, gosh, it’s one thing to expect a pretty good baseball team, and it’s quite another to actually see one. You remember the preseason projections. I think, as far back as November, I wrote about why the Mariners might be the best team in the American League. The projections were encouraging, and they were encouraging across the board. Steamer liked the Mariners. ZiPS liked the Mariners. PECOTA liked the Mariners. Clay Davenport liked the Mariners. Vegas liked the Mariners. Baseball analysts and commentators liked the Mariners. Scouts liked the Mariners. The Mariners were not an underdog. The Mariners were not a surprise. The season they’ve had — this is a season that we all knew could happen. I remember a tweet from sometime in March, and I think it was posted by Peter Gammons, and he cited a scout who saw the Mariners in spring training and said they looked like the league’s best ballclub. The response wasn’t, “what on earth?” The response was, “sure”. The scout wasn’t exactly going out on a limb.

We knew the Mariners looked strong. We knew they had both talent and depth. But there’s another thing we also knew: the error bars around preseason projections are enormous. When we thought the Mariners could be a playoff team in 2008, they lost 101 games. When we thought the Mariners could be a playoff team in 2010, they lost 101 games. Those memories aren’t easy ones to dismiss. Those were the most recent years in which we began all optimistic, and they wound up with names like Tug Hulett and Chris Seddon. As baseball fans, we root for players, not projections, and sometimes players under-perform. Sometimes players develop ankylosing spondylitis. You’d think that it might be a little less enjoyable to go into a year where success isn’t surprising, and that’s probably true when you get to the point where you really do take perennial success for granted, but, none of us were actually doing that. We’ve not been in position to take winning for granted. Maybe five years from now. But the projections were always at odds with that aforementioned identity. And when there’s a disagreement between the gut and the numbers, you’ll feel the gut more than you’ll feel the data. We wouldn’t be able to accept the Mariners as a good team until they played like an actual good team. An actual playoff team. A playoff team like the playoff team they are.

It’s stark how different the feeling is when the baseball team you follow is playing for something. The games matter, every single day. Games thrill you or upset you, every single day. On the penultimate day of the 2014 regular season, I remember watching the end of a Mariners/Angels game at a bar, and then Austin Jackson hit that incredibly stupid game-winning forceout. He made contact that was too bad for the Angels to turn an inning-ending double play, and that’s how the Mariners survived into their final nine innings. It didn’t matter. It didn’t have to be pretty, and it didn’t matter who was responsible. I left that bar and just about skipped for ten blocks. It was genuine elation at minutes before midnight, and it was elation because the Mariners still had a chance to go to the playoffs, because of a game they won.

Sure, it ultimately didn’t work out, but 2014 gave us a few glimpses of what 2015 would be like. There was more than occasional elation. There was a very real sense of hanging on just about every pitch, and while it would be romanticizing things to say that was always the case, when the games you’re watching are important, you’re less likely to notice how slow they might be going. You’re less likely to notice if it’s, say, Willie Bloomquist driving home the run instead of Robinson Cano. All you want is a win, and it doesn’t matter how it happens, and a slow pace might be appreciated so that you can give your heart a breather. You remember, last offseason was the offseason of speeding up the pace of the game. A noble goal, absolutely, but the people to whom that matters most are professional baseball writers and fans of bad teams. Fans of good teams don’t have complaints. The biggest complaint might be that the next game isn’t here yet.

To get more personal for a paragraph, I moved to the Pacific Northwest in February 2010. Like many, I’ve fallen in love with it here, and more than anything else, I’ve been delighted by the summers, and the opportunities they’ve afforded for incredible hiking and other-worldly camping. Some summers, it seemed like just about every weekend I’d be leaving the city and leaving the grid to get lost somewhere in the woods or the rock. I never feel more centered than I do when I’m out there, and in no time that developed into my primary passion. This became the summer of staying in. More and more, I found myself torn, choosing between getting outdoors and watching the Mariners. This was my least-active summer of all my summers here. Hiking was always the excuse for abandoning the Mariners. The Mariners became an excuse for abandoning the trails. Now, I don’t think that’ll be long-term sustainable — one needs to go into the world — but that reflects the appeal of the ballclub we were given. The Seattle Mariners are an entertainment venture, and this year they’ve actually looked it.

I remember being so annoyed by the obvious marketing. All the ploys I’d see on Twitter to get you to go to a game and hand over all your money. The team’s a business, and businesses succeed by collecting what you’ve earned, and when you start to see through it, it’s repulsive. Out there, there are so many agendas. But then, people generally do know when they’re being marketed to, and it didn’t seem to diminish any of the enthusiasm. The Mariners are always trying to sell themselves, but this has been a baseball team people wanted to be sold. There was nothing sinister afoot. No one had to be convinced to go to a game and get a beer and a hot dog, because beer is delicious, and hot dogs are delicious, and games are where you can watch the Mariners win around 40,000 other people. Sometimes some of them wear yellow and they’re loud as fuck.

The King’s Court gave us our first glimpse of a kind of playoff atmosphere, even within dead seasons. Felix was a draw — watching Felix pitch was an experience. This team has delivered other experiences, more often than once per five days. Nelson Cruz really does hit the ball differently, like a full-season version of pre-injury Michael Morse. James Paxton isn’t Clayton Kershaw, but we’ve been able to see the influence. Robinson Cano is the kind of steady hitter we hadn’t seen since Edgar Martinez, and it seemed like he had two hits every day. Every time Fernando Rodney came jogging in, it felt like a rock concert. All Brad Miller did was develop into the best all-around shortstop in the AL. And there was, you know, the general team experience. Cheering every run, every out, and every win. Didn’t matter whether Felix was pitching or not. Felix didn’t start any of those four games against the Angels that the Mariners swept going into the All-Star break. Didn’t mean it wasn’t maybe the most enjoyable series of baseball the Mariners had played in, man, I couldn’t even tell you. Felix helped to get us through the darker days. In the brighter ones, he was always going to be just a part of the whole.

It’s been months of baseball at the best that baseball can be. Which, if you step back, is kind of amazing, if you consider what we’ve talked about. Right around when the Mariners signed Cano was when Geoff Baker published that article bringing down the front office, and we’ve all previously pondered the question of whether we wanted these people to be in charge anymore. We all felt like, even just a few years ago, the Mariners were stuck in the bottom tier. At that point, if you recall, the Mariners seemed almost hopeless, and the Rangers seemed like a model franchise. It’s not that everyone was totally wrong. Baseball will surprise you. For their part, the Rangers have been undone by a few bad decisions and a lot of bad luck. But, front-office evaluations and organizational summaries are things we talk about to fill the time between baseball seasons and baseball games. All we care about is the baseball team we like the most winning more games than it doesn’t. This team has. Things were unquestionably dark. It can just be hard to appreciate how soon the light of dawn can arrive. Baseball moves quicker than a five-year plan.

Five years ago, the Mariners wrapped up a 61-101 season they began with title dreams. They began it with Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee and Chone Figgins before Chone Figgins was a bad name to invoke in a sentence like this. It was more than just a damaging season — it was a season that forced the organization to go back to the drawing board. It was a season that, reportedly, altered the way the front office operated. It was a season we wouldn’t be able to forget if we tried, even though it was also a season we stopped paying attention to by the time it was half of the way over. It was a season that made success feel more distant than ever.

As this season has wrapped up, this season also has not wrapped up. It’s simply given way to a later season, a special season, a season the Mariners get to begin by dealing with the Blue Jays. And maybe that’s the way it’ll end, who knows, but getting here was the point, and the season has been a success, no matter what happens. First place is first place, and most good teams fall short of the World Series. For years, Safeco has been invaded by Blue Jays fans traveling down from the north, and they’ve been loud and Mariners fans have tried to be loud in response, as if the teams or the games even mattered. This is going to be a little different. There won’t be so many opportunities to think about being as obnoxiously loud as possible. The fans’ll be too busy being as obnoxiously loud as possible.

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PEORIA, Ariz. — Chris Taylor wasn’t about to let a fastball off the wrist slow his ongoing quest in the Mariners shortstop race Friday.

Officially, Chris Taylor has let a fastball off the wrist slow his ongoing quest in the Mariners shortstop race. From the press release:

Chris Taylor has been diagnosed with a fracture of the triquetrum bone in his right wrist.

At first I wasn’t sure what to think, but I just got off the phone with a doctor who confirmed that “triquetrum” is a real word, so this all seems legit, as opposed to being an elaborate prank being played by the team for some reason. Taylor’s going to be sidelined for some time, and while he thankfully won’t need any kind of surgical intervention, the shortstop competition is over, and it came down to Brewers reliever Jim Henderson, just like we all suspected. Based on the timeline of Taylor returning to baseball activities, the best-case scenario might be his becoming available around the beginning of May. More likely, it’ll be the middle or the end of the month.

And then, who knows, maybe we’ll have the shortstop competition revived. It’s not like this has been decided forever, irreversibly. But now we know Brad Miller will be the Mariners’ starting shortstop out of the gate, at least unless he also faces Jim Henderson. No one likes an injury, and we all have the right to be pissed off at Henderson for this:

On the other hand, maybe Henderson has served his punishment, because within literally seconds, Taylor tried to separate Henderson’s teeth from his mandible:

Often in the past, we’ve all been critical of players for trying to play through pain. Not only does performance tend to suffer — the injuries can get worse, as they aren’t given time to properly heal. What we have here, though, is Chris Taylor singling through the box a pitch after sustaining a fracture in his wrist. In other words, Taylor with a broken bone is batting 1.000. Market inefficiency? It’ll take some brave souls to find out.

Let’s assume Taylor’s fine in the long run. It’s not a given, since wrists are tricky, but he should be okay. We’ve had the biggest question of spring temporarily answered. Miller will be the shortstop. Willie Bloomquist, then, will be the backup, and Ketel Marte is around just to try to show off what he can do and prove he isn’t an offensive or defensive zero. Because Miller will be the guy, he’ll be that much more difficult to displace whenever Taylor is back in action. This spring, the two were locked in a fair and even fight. Once the season starts, it’ll be Miller’s job unless he loses it. Which he could do, but maybe this time he actually hits.

It’s possible things could become very complicated. Taylor is a shortstop. Marte is a shortstop. They can’t both be regular shortstops in Tacoma. Marc has written about this recently. Miller is the most versatile of the players, so in that sense it actually made more sense to have Taylor get the Mariners’ gig. Then Miller could move around at a bunch of positions in Tacoma, and Marte could play a lot of short and a little second. Now, I’m not sure. It won’t be hard for the season’s first few weeks, but then I don’t know what the course of action will be. If Miller’s doing well, there’ll be little urgency to move him. Maybe Willie Bloomquist could make this easier, by being really bad — then the Mariners could increasingly justify carrying both Miller and Taylor at the same time.

I still feel like Miller deserves a chance to be the Mariners’ next center fielder, after Austin Jackson. I think he has the skills, and there’s no one else in the system, unless you believe in James Jones, which you probably shouldn’t. Now, this news might make that ever so slightly less likely, with Miller locked in at short for a while. He might still be able to make a quick transition between 2015 – 2016, should it come to that, but you can see how there could be wide-ranging consequences of one fastball that seemingly got away from a Brewer. Maybe I’m taking this too far. The Mariners probably aren’t yet thinking about how they’re going to replace Austin Jackson. More importantly, they want to make sure Austin Jackson isn’t bad anymore.

One of the silver linings: the Mariners have lost a big-league-ready shortstop, and they still have a healthy big-league-ready shortstop. Not many teams would be able to say that. Another silver lining: between Miller and Taylor, I personally prefer Miller right now, so I like him more for a potential playoff season anyway. But I don’t know what’s going to happen in May. It’s hard to find room for so much up-the-middle depth when you want the guys playing every game.

Ultimately, in the long run, if Miller hits enough and if Taylor hits enough, they’ll both be starters somewhere. Yet, now Miller has won a competition by default, and Taylor has lost an opportunity to earn the distinction of being an Opening Day starter. So this isn’t the way anyone wanted this to go. Except for maybe Jim Henderson. Jim Henderson seems like a real son of a bitch.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/03/14/jim-henderson-decided-the-shortstop-competition/feed/0The Mariners and 700 Runshttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/03/14/the-mariners-and-700-runs/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/03/14/the-mariners-and-700-runs/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 00:16:09 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20822Lloyd McClendon has set a goal for this team: score 700 runs. If you wanted, you could classify it as a sub-goal, with the primary umbrella goal being: don’t suck. McClendon figures 700 runs would be the magic threshold beyond which the Mariners are sure to make the playoffs, and while McClendon isn’t stupid enough to think there’s that much difference between 700 and 699, a number is a number, and a number can be written about. Now I just need to figure out what to write.

Last year? Last year, the Mariners scored 634 runs. Why might they do better? They spent a lot to get better at DH. They expect a full season of not being a catastrophe out of Austin Jackson. There are platoons in both the outfield corners, even if McClendon won’t label them as such, and if you think about additional improvement from some other youth, okay, 700 is well within reach. Why might they do worse? This is no time to talk about that. Lots of ways they could do worse. If they happen, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about them, and about how the season blows, during the season itself.

FanGraphs has the Mariners projected to score 667 runs. Baseball Prospectus puts them at 675. Clay Davenport somewhat brutally puts them at 633, albeit with excellent run prevention. The point here being, the Mariners aren’t projected to score 700 runs, even by the systems that expect the Mariners to be a real good team. If you prefer, there’s this: based on recent history, a 700-run offense would require about a .315 wOBA. FanGraphs projects the Mariners for a .316 wOBA. That threshold is approachable, and could be surpassed.

Probably the most interesting thing here is just how it’s a reminder of the times. I’m not about to tell you anything new, but, let’s try to drive some points home. This should more or less explain itself:

McClendon’s magic number is 700 runs. Go back 15 years, and every single team in the American League beat that mark. As recently as 2009, we saw 12 of 14 teams get past 700. Last year, six of 15, down from the previous year’s nine of 15. Last year, the AL average was 677 runs per team. Between 2004 – 2007, not a single team in the league had a single season with that few runs scored. By looking for 700, McClendon believes his team could have an above-average offense. Only a few seasons ago, it would’ve meant something different.

Think about when this all started. When the Mariners transitioned from the successful era, I mean. In both 2000 and 2001, the Mariners exceeded 900 runs. In 2004, when the franchise bottomed out, the Mariners finished at 698. The next season, 699. Even the 2008 team scored 671 runs. All this is reminding you of is that the run environment has changed, and it’s changed an awful lot in a relatively short amount of time. You were probably aware of the trend, but we’re all still slow to adjust our impressions of what numbers are normal. 700 still feels like a low amount of runs. In truth, that would be terrific, especially when you factor in the Safeco effect. We have to adjust how we think about everything. In 2000, there were 53 qualified .300+ hitters. Last year, there were 16. And this coming year, there will probably be even fewer than that, because it’s not like the run environment is about to be inflated. Not that quickly. MLB is aware of what’s going on, but it’s not going to change anything about the game overnight because it can’t afford the risk of being that hasty.

And it’s not even clear this is a bad thing. It’s fact that offense is down, relative to where it’s been before. It’s opinion that baseball is broken as a consequence. There is a minimum threshold of acceptability somewhere, but it doesn’t seem we’re there yet. Anyway, I’m straying from the point.

The point being, the Mariners want to score 700 runs, and in this day and age, 700 runs is actually a difficult mark to achieve. The offense ought to be better, but 700 is by no means a given, and this isn’t McClendon just setting a low bar — he’s actually put it higher than the projections, the same projections that think the Mariners should go to the playoffs. Let’s take the FanGraphs numbers. With their projections, you’d expect them to end up around an 87-75 record. Now bump the offense up to 700 runs. Then you’d expect them to end up at a 91-71 record. Every 91+ win team in the new wild-card era has advanced beyond a 162nd game. Turns out 700′s a good number to shoot for.

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I played in a death metal band. People either loved us or they hated us, or they thought we were okay.

So much talk right now about expectations. It’s mostly because, hey, expectations. I mean, there are always expectations surrounding the Mariners in spring training, but this is the first time in a while said expectations have been strongly optimistic. I’ve seen multiple articles to the effect of, “despite expectations, McClendon believes team still needs to perform.” I very literally can’t think of a stupider premise, but at least that does tell you one thing — people expect the Mariners to be good. Like, possibly division-winning good.

It feels unfamiliar, and that isn’t just recency bias. This really is something new. And mostly coincidentally, I’ve spent the last couple days sifting through team projections from the past decade. It took some work to get all the numbers together, and there are a few issues with relying on various projections going back further and further into history, but the projections have never been nonsense. Even in 2005, they conveyed an idea of how teams were supposed to perform, and you know what they say about history? Well they say a lot of things about history. One is that we can learn from it.

Let’s learn from it. As of right now, Baseball Prospectus has the Mariners projected to win 87 games, based on PECOTA. FanGraphs has the Mariners projected to win 89 games, based on Steamer, and while we’re still waiting on ZiPS stuff to be uploaded, ZiPS is pretty much in agreement. Clay Davenport has the Mariners projected to win 86 games. The last I saw from Vegas, the Mariners’ over/under line has been set at 86.5 wins. The numbers have rolled in, and there are no remaining surprises. The Mariners project really well. People are excited! This is a potential champion that’s just gotten things started in Peoria.

Time to dive into history. On my spreadsheet, I can find 60 teams that have been projected for between 86 – 90 wins, since 2005. The average of their projections: 88 wins. Their actual, average performance: 88 wins. Look at that! It’s a dead match. That’s why people are excited — teams that look good tend to be good. More often than not, you can see the good teams coming, at least to a certain extent.

Yet all I’ve shown you are averages. Let’s look at those 60 teams again. By record, the best team wound up being the 2008 Angels, who won 100 games. And, by record, the worst team wound up being the 2009 Indians, who won 65 games. Those Indians were projected for 86 wins. Those Angels were projected for 88. In terms of the difference between actual wins and projected wins, one standard deviation for this pool of 60 teams is 8.2. Which is to say, the team projection is meaningful, and if the team actually wins a very different number of games, yeah, that happens sometimes. We think we know a lot. We do know a lot. We know a lot of what is knowable. By definition we can never know the unknowable, and it turns out performance = knowable + unknowable, in more or less equal parts.

To go back to an earlier point, it’s definitely a change to see the Mariners projected so well. Here are their projected win totals, since 2005:

2005: 82

2006: 81

2007: 76

2008: 77

2009: 78

2010: 81

2011: 74

2012: 75

2013: 73

2014: 82

(2015: 86 – 90?)

This is the first time in a while the Mariners have been projected for more than 82 wins, which feels about right. The team has so much confidence it can almost be mistaken for having swagger. Maybe it does have swagger, I don’t know. I’m not an expert on swagger identification. But in 2005, the Mariners fell short of their projected win total by 13. In 2008, they fell short of their projected win total by 16. In 2010, they fell short of their projected win total by 20. 2005 was the year they newly had Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson. 2008 was the year they newly had Erik Bedard. 2010 was the year they newly had Cliff Lee and Chone Figgins. The level of expectations is new, but we’ve had our hopes up before. The Mariners didn’t just shatter them; they shattered them and fed them to us, shattered bit by shattered bit. “Eat this. Eat this shattered bit of optimism.”

What we know is the team looks pretty good. It’s not just in our heads — it’s backed up by the numbers. What that means is the team will definitely be good, bad, or okay. It’s always easy to see the upside. It’s always easy to imagine good health and a breakthrough or two. It’s never so easy to recognize the downside. You don’t envision Chone Figgins losing 140 points of OPS. You don’t envision ankylosing spondylitis. Successful teams are all alike. Every lousy team is lousy in its own way.

I don’t mean to try to make you unhappy. I don’t mean to try to reduce your level of enthusiasm. The thing about spring is there’s enthusiasm everywhere, because you need to clear only a very low threshold in order to dream. If your team is projected to win 90 games, you’re thinking World Series. If your team is projected to win 80 games, you’re thinking World Series, if a thing or two go right. If your team is projected to win 70 games, you’re thinking playoffs, if a thing or two go right, and then what are the playoffs but four weeks of randomness? Everybody gets to dream in February. Just as there’s downside, there’s upside, and the Mariners could be even better than we think.

But, did you know they play baseball games, after all the projections are filed? I know. I’m scared, too. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and we’ve all fallen enough that we’re covered in painful, unsightly bruises. I don’t want to fall again. I don’t want to fall, again. I feel like last year we just took a good step. The next step’s sure precarious.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/27/the-mariners-will-probably-win-between-65-and-100-games/feed/0Jesus Montero Isn’t Just A Best-Shape Storyhttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/22/jesus-montero-isnt-just-a-best-shape-story/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/22/jesus-montero-isnt-just-a-best-shape-story/#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2015 01:42:24 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20757I’m not entirely sure where we stand on these at the moment. In the familiar history, players would show up at spring training and declare that they were fitter than ever. This happened often enough that people who cover players started to make fun of them for it, sometimes gently and sometimes not so much, with the message always being that, great, glad you look a little sexier, but nobody cares. What’s the current state, though? Especially with so many players reading material online. Are they sufficiently self-aware to avoid saying they’re in the best shape of their lives? Do they look for different ways to say it? Do we look for different ways to respond to it? These things are always evolving. Anything to squeeze something fresh from a hopelessly trite bowl of oranges.

Someone, somewhere, is still going to compile a list this spring training of players who say they’re in particularly great shape. The point will be to laugh about it. Jesus Montero is going to be on the list. Jesus Montero is in the best shape of his life. I don’t think that applies to any player more than it applies to Montero. So in a sense Montero is the new face of an annual cliche, but I don’t think we should be so cynical. There’s safety in cynicism — there’s comfort in remaining closed-minded — but I don’t think Jesus Montero’s is just another empty and purposeless spin of the best-shape carnival wheel.

And, this is really easy. David Freese might be in the best shape of his life. If that’s perhaps an exaggeration, Freese is at least supposed to be in better-than-usual shape. It’s an easy thing to shrug off, though. Why? Freese has never been in bad shape. Freese has always been a classically-built ballplayer, with strength for days, and no one’s ever looked at him and thought, “you could stand to do something with your body.” When Freese’s body has held him back, it’s been because of injuries. Some fractures, some consequences of hit-by-pitches, a busted ankle tendon. Being more fit won’t stop those things. You won’t look at Freese this year and think he’s a different player.

And maybe Jesus Montero won’t be a different player, but he’ll at least profile differently. His transformation is something sensational, because in the past, he hasn’t looked like a classically-built ballplayer. And he still doesn’t look like Yasiel Puig, but glance at a picture of Montero from this week and you’ll swear you see a damned athlete. The reason this matters is because Montero’s fitness was a legitimate problem. It was holding him back in virtually every way — it was bad for his running, it was bad for his fielding, it was bad for his swing, and it was bad for his confidence. We used to joke about Jose Lopez being out of shape. Jesus Montero was, totally honestly, badly out of shape. That was broadly evident a year ago, but it was a factor, too, the year before that. Montero says he’s back to 2011 weight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s moved beyond 2011 athleticism. The work he’s put in, he’s never put in before.

That’s the other part of this. One thing holding Montero back was his level of fitness. That reflected a pretty unprofessional lack of discipline. So not only could he not do certain things like he wanted to; he didn’t demonstrate much drive to get better. What’s the expression? Talent gets you to the majors, and heart keeps you there, or something like that? Talent got Jesus Montero to the majors. He didn’t put in the effort to stick.

Extended major-league careers are selective for those players who try hard enough. There’s some minimum determination threshold, and while it isn’t the same for every player, since some players are just naturally superior to others, literally everybody has to bust his ass to get to arbitration salaries or free agency. Montero never showed enough initiative. Now he’s coming off an offseason of working out I think literally every day, even on holidays, even on the big ones. Montero didn’t go home. He worked out. He didn’t stop working out. He conveyed that something clicked, or that something was at least in the process of clicking. I don’t want to go too far, but based on indications, I think now Jesus Montero might get it.

Again, it’s easy to snark. Montero’s the same guy who once said he spent the whole offseason eating, and lest you forget, that was only a year ago, and people grow only so much in a year. You can analyze the hell out of this, though. Montero’s around those ages when people start to learn something about real-world responsibilities. Montero’s coming off some of the most embarrassing seasons in recent Mariners history, and his own bosses ripped him in the media. And Montero recently had a child. His very own human child! There have been a lot of significant changes in Jesus Montero’s life. So it makes sense they could’ve driven him to make another. Do you know what it feels like to bottom out of 24? Actually, maybe you do, but I bet people never believed in you as much as they believed in Jesus Montero. I bet you’ve never let that many people down. Let that many people down, and a man has decisions to make.

Montero, the last few months, has made good decisions. To some extent the initial decision might’ve been made for him, by the organization, but Montero has elected to stick with the plan and show some real, actual discipline. Now he looks like a baseball player. Maybe he still won’t look much like a baseball player during organized, competitive baseball games, but if talent comes naturally, then Montero has cleared the path for the talent to show itself again. Unless things turn, his body won’t hold him back nearly as much. Unless things turn, his effort won’t hold him back nearly as much. All we’ve wanted to know is whether Jesus Montero is good enough to play for a while in the major leagues. Montero has taken steps toward letting us finally find out. As long as this keeps up, then if Jesus Montero fails, he’ll fail on account of his skills. Of the many ways to fail, that’s gotta be the best.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/22/jesus-montero-isnt-just-a-best-shape-story/feed/0Let’s Now Care About Rickie Weekshttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/12/lets-now-give-a-shit-about-rickie-weeks/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/12/lets-now-give-a-shit-about-rickie-weeks/#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 08:42:12 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20749You’ll never believe this, but the Mariners just signed a former Brewer. The specific former Brewer in this case is Rickie Weeks, and his contract is worth money that doesn’t matter over the minimum number of years. In the worst-case scenario, Weeks is bad, and his salary gets in the way of the Mariners’ midseason flexibility. In the best-case scenario, Weeks performs and hits all his incentives, but then Weeks might only hit all his incentives if he plays a bunch, and if he plays a bunch it’s because something happened to Robinson Cano, so in at least this one way the Rickie Weeks best-case scenario is also among the Mariners’ worst-case scenarios. This is off to a good start.

Despite Weeks’ career Milwaukee-ness, this is a surprising move. You would’ve thought Weeks would go to one of those places that has a hole at second base. Instead he joined the team with literally the best second baseman, but then, to be honest, Weeks at this point isn’t really a second baseman anymore anyway. Now, just one year ago, Weeks refused to move off second to play another position, so that bodes poorly, but that’s also in the past, and I can’t imagine Weeks just signed with the Mariners voluntarily in the belief that he’ll stick to his spot. Maybe he really is that stupid, or maybe his agent really does have that little knowledge of the greater baseball landscape, but the probability points to Weeks now being a little more open-minded. People tend to be less stubborn when they’re increasingly desperate to put off irrelevance.

Because it’s a surprising move, it’s an interesting move. This one wasn’t telegraphed, this one wasn’t predictable, and this one wasn’t some minor-league contract with an invite to Peoria. In theory, Weeks can fit on this team. In theory, it’s simple. Many of us assumed the Mariners were finished changing things up, but — and you might want to sit down — they couldn’t pass up a chance to acquire a right-handed proven slugger with a history of bad defense and strikeouts.

Weeks was the second overall pick in 2003, and because of that he’s thought by many to be a career under-achiever. Just for the record, these were the picks around him:

1st: Delmon Young

3rd: Kyle Sleeth

4th: Tim Stauffer

5th: Chris Lubanski

6th: Ryan Harvey

Everything’s relative, and Weeks has had his moments and seasons in the sun. He started to hit in 2006, and through 2011, he was a fine all-around regular second baseman. He was a hell of a hitter through his peak; between 2009 – 2011, Weeks posted the same wRC+ as Victor Martinez and Andrew McCutchen. But then, in 2011, the Phillies were the best team in baseball. Things have changed. Weeks got worse, as players do. He started to get booed from time to time. Though his hitting numbers picked up last year, he was also heavily platooned, swinging the odds in his favor, and he lost his regular job to a fellow named Scooter. In addition to this, defensive metrics hate Weeks at second like they hate few other players.

Weeks is no longer an everyday player. Last year’s performance shows a change in his batted-ball profile, away from putting the ball in the air, but the safe assumption here is that Weeks should only really bat against lefties. Against righties, he can be exploited, and it’s not like he’s going to gain some runs back with his glove. Weeks goes to the bench as experienced insurance. So: what does that mean?

Weeks has literally only played second in the majors. He’s played second, occasional DH, and occasional pinch-hitter. In the minors, he played only second base. The Mariners, though, didn’t sign Weeks to just back up Robinson Cano. The bench, as I see it:

Jesus Sucre, or maybe John Baker

Willie Bloomquist

Justin Ruggiano

Rickie Weeks

The catchers are just catchers, and I don’t know if they even own their own bats. Bloomquist can play anywhere, or at least he could play anywhere, but now he’s coming off surgery, and I’ve heard some talk that he might not be ready for the start of the year. Ruggiano is the platoon partner for Seth Smith. That leaves Weeks as the last guy. That means no space for Jesus Montero. It means no space for James Jones, or the loser of the shortstop competition. Space would require a five-man bench, and that would require a six-man bullpen. You won’t see a six-man bullpen with a manager who’s fond of an eight-man bullpen.

The Weeks news isn’t yet confirmed, so we don’t have any quotes from the team. As such, we have to guess at his usage. I see a little bit of lots of things. A few games of giving Cano a breather. Maybe even a couple games at third. I think he picks up some games against lefties as a first baseman, and he might sneak in at DH once or twice. Weeks could also get reps in an outfield corner — Dustin Ackley is both left-handed and Dustin Ackley, so he’s not a lock to do anything, and as things stand Ackley is also the roster depth behind Austin Jackson. Jackson is also supported by James Jones, Endy Chavez, Franklin Gutierrez, and maybe Brad Miller, but those guys won’t start the year with Seattle. I guess Miller might, but that would be as a shortstop.

Weeks provides the Mariners with a little flexibility and a little bit of pop. Let’s say the roster stays as it is, and let’s say…Miller wins the job at short. Against righties, the Mariners could start six left-handed hitters. Against lefties, the Mariners could start five right-handed hitters. You can move your own numbers around if you figure the right-handed Chris Taylor beats Miller out. The point is the team has some built-in protection. And nothing is set in stone. Injury or under-performance means different players show up. If Montero beats the hell out of the ball in Tacoma, he’ll rise. You’ll see Gutierrez if he doesn’t accidentally fall in front of a bus. If Bloomquist is toast, Taylor and Miller could potentially co-exist. Weeks himself has a guaranteed contract, but a guaranteed contract just means you have guaranteed money, not a guaranteed roster spot. Weeks won’t last if he pulls a 2013. And as much as 2014 was encouraging, 2013 was the opposite, and just a year earlier.

When it’s February, you get more than a thousand words about a bench acquisition that teams with holes at second base didn’t want. Weeks has been a really good player before, but then Endy Chavez has been a really good player before, and if it’s perspective you want, the Mariners got Weeks for a year and $2 million. That’s less than half their guarantee an offseason ago to Willie Bloomquist. This isn’t like getting a pitch-framer for cheap, because it’s a market inefficiency. Rickie Weeks isn’t a market inefficiency. He’s just a guy who hits lefties sometimes, and he has a history that takes a little longer to thumb through than most. It’s for the best, for him, he’s moving on from Milwaukee. That doesn’t mean it’s also for the best for Seattle, but it’s not like the system was overflowing with quality candidates for the one spot remaining. Weeks is good enough to satisfy those who confuse activity for improvement, and he could even be better than that.

The upside, per usual, is that Weeks plays the hero in an exciting and extended playoff run. Maybe he delivers the sort of hit or two that make him an area legend. Every champion includes bit parts no one ever expected much from. The downside is that Weeks sucks, and sucks often enough and conspicuously enough that he gets booed in Safeco, too. We could hate him, and he could hate us. But that’s just the way it is with anyone. You have to give a chance to people. Don’t decide they suck before you know them; if they suck, that’s a tough thing to keep hidden.

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This post came from: U.S.S. Mariner, and is copyright by the authors. This RSS feed is intended for the personal use of readers and not, for instance, spam blogs.

The Mariners had a workout for multiple Cuban players today in the Dominican Republic, including second basemen Andy Ibanez and Hector Olivera. In attendance at that workout were Mariners president Kevin Mather, general manager Jack Zduriencik and international director Tim Kissner.

But baseball sources downplayed the presence of Mather and Zduriencik at the workouts. They were on hand for them because there were organizational meetings going on at the facility that same week. Both Zduriencik and Mather were down there for those meetings not specifically to see those two players.

That says almost enough, right there. Zduriencik and Mather watched the workout because it literally would’ve been difficult for them not to. So, this isn’t any kind of indication that the Mariners are totally serious about making an international play, but the fact of the matter is that there *was* a workout, and the Mariners *did* pay attention, and it *is* the beginning of February and the only alternative to thinking about this story is thinking about the Super Bowl and relative to that isn’t this story just the most interesting and compelling story? Let’s talk about this story. Let’s only talk about this story, for at least the next couple of weeks. Let’s talk about this story when we wake up, and let’s talk about this story until we fall asleep. Let’s talk ourselves asleep, with this story.

Of Olivera and Ibanez, Olivera is the bigger name. He’s the guy who’s said to be big-league ready, or just about. Ibanez is more of a prospect. Olivera is a prospect, too, but Ibanez is the kind of prospect who would immediately fit into the low- to mid-minors. The curious thing is that Olivera profiles as a second or third baseman, and Ibanez, too, profiles as a second baseman. The Mariners have one of those, and they have a third baseman, too, and while it’s more possible than you might realize that something disastrous could happen at literally any moment, changing things forever, there’s planning for downside and there’s planning for complete and utter catastrophe. You don’t plan for catastrophes that leave you hopelessly shattered. You just let those catastrophes ruin you.

Now, about this workout: from the looks of things, Olivera and Ibanez were present, but they were not the only players present. Those other players, presumably, have their own talents, even if they don’t quite match up to the higher-profile individuals. It’s possible the Mariners could sign one or two Cubans from the workout, and it’s possible none of the signed players would be Hector Olivera or Andy Ibanez. The hell should I know? If I knew what the Mariners were going to do, I’d tell that to the Mariners, and they’d, I don’t know, do something. Maybe they’d try to do something other than what I predicted, but, I would’ve predicted that already, and — it’s complicated. I don’t really want to get into determinism here.

It’s only natural to let your imaginations run wild. That’s the whole appeal of these rumors and links. And I’m not going to try to stop you from getting ahead of yourself; do what you want, it’s a Friday afternoon. It’s baseball. It doesn’t matter. Here’s what we know: the Mariners are aware of a couple talented future Cuban imports, and they’ve put them through a workout. If Olivera and Ibanez were available to the Mariners for a few dollars, the Mariners would sign both of them, without any question. I guess that’s an assumption, not actual knowledge, but it’s a safe assumption.

But there’s a connection, and then there’s the rest. There’s interest, and then there’s signing a guy. There’s signing a guy, and then there’s worrying about how he fits. The most important thing is the general accumulation of talent. Worry about fits when the talent is actually in-house. Remember that, earlier this offseason, the Mariners were said to have made a run at Russell Martin, even though they already have Mike Zunino. Room can be made if room needs to be made. If the Mariners actually acquired Olivera, he’d fit somewhere. It’s not like anyone on this team is a near-lock aside from Cano and Seager, and someone who can play second base can play a lot of things.

And Ibanez? If the Mariners had Ibanez, he’d just be a prospect. Nothing to worry about. Should the Mariners just ditch the prospects they have who play positions currently occupied by good players? You should just about never worry about a blocked prospect. Miraculously, teams figure out ways to proceed. No baseball team has ever been contracted because it had too much talent at the same one or two places.

The Mariners watched some players work out. They wouldn’t have done that if they had 0-percent interest, so, their interest level might be rightly described as non-0 percent. It’s pretty easy to go from there to “the Mariners badly want one or both of these Cubans!” That would be really blowing this out of proportion. And remember, there’s nothing special about the Mariners’ situation — every team in baseball knows these guys. Many of the teams want them. The odds are highly, highly against the Mariners signing Olivera, or Ibanez, or both, or really anyone decently high-profile. When it’s the Mariners against the field, you always bet the field.

So, probably, nothing comes of this. Already it doesn’t seem like anything will come of this. This story was just a thing that came up that allowed you to think about anything else besides life for a few minutes during a week. That’s either the whole point of why we’re here, or the very opposite of it. I’m still trying to work that out, but I think I’m getting close to the answer.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/02/06/the-mariners-watched-a-few-cubans/feed/0Jesus Montero, Normal-Sized Personhttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/01/23/jesus-montero-normal-sized-person/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/01/23/jesus-montero-normal-sized-person/#commentsSat, 24 Jan 2015 01:21:36 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20741You guys know the story of Crater Lake, right? I just kind of assume so, because the story is so familiar to me, but then that’s probably not fair; other people have other interests, and for most it’s just a piece of insignificant trivia. Who cares how a lake came to be? But let me at least run through this real quick: where Crater Lake is, there once stood a majestic snowy peak, the Mount Mazama Cascade volcano. The volcano erupted, as volcanoes are wont to do, and this particular eruption was inconceivably enormous, and much of the peak was destroyed. Some matter flew away; other matter collapsed inward, as the underground magma chamber emptied itself. When the dust settled and the rains and snows came, a lake formed within the giant crater, a lake where the water has nowhere to go.

The eruption took place around 5,677 BC. That is, the estimated date is 5,677 BC, plus or minus 150 years. There’s a 300-year window within which we believe the mountain destroyed itself. This is, scientifically, a very precise estimate. Oftentimes you get calculated windows stretching thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

Meanwhile, Jesus Montero just missed his reporting weight by one year. Last year, they wanted him to weigh 235 pounds, and he instead weighed 275 pounds. Now? Now, one year later, he weighs 235 pounds on the nose. And they want us to think his weight was some kind of big deal a season ago? He barely missed his target. In the grand scheme of things, there’s nary a blink between 2014 spring training and 2015 spring training, so, as far as I’m concerned, kudos to Jesus Montero for doing what he was supposed to do, basically. People are always in such a hurry these days. Slow down and don’t worry about expiring deadlines. If you get it done late, you’re not really late. We just have a warped perception of the passing of time.

The message from the Mariners is this: there’s reason to be encouraged about Jesus Montero. They’ll tell you they never gave up on him. And it’s true, they didn’t, at least based on his remaining on the 40-man roster. Maybe that was faith, and maybe that was stubbornness, but here we are, and Jack Zduriencik is happy to tell anyone he knew Montero could figure things out. The organization didn’t give up on Montero, even if one scout in particular did. And maybe, in some small way, that very scout helped motivate Montero to whip himself in shape.

Motivation, you can try to identify in retrospect. Montero clearly wasn’t very motivated, that one time he said he spent the whole winter eating. That was one of the dumbest athlete quotes I’d ever heard, exactly on par with that caloric nonsense from Nick Franklin. Since then, the Mariners have blasted Montero in the press. They essentially removed him from his big-league peers, and they tried to make him learn a new position. Montero had that suspension to deal with, and then he finally got sent ice cream in a dugout. What just happened was a very embarrassing year. An extraordinarily embarrassing year. Somewhere, somehow, Montero was able to search within himself and find a little nugget of pride.

What’s being suggested, what’s being sold, is that Montero might be fixed as an individual, which would be the key to fixing him as a player. That seems too quick, too hasty, too easy. Montero is just 25 years old, and he’s experienced several years of hype. You can sort of see how he was able to lose his own way, and you know you are or were a completely different person at 30 than 20. Changes do happen, based on maturity and life experiences, and Montero just experienced a hell of a year. But you still need to have a little healthy skepticism. Sufficient self-motivation is among the Earth’s less prevalent resources, and Montero had none of it at 24. It’s hard to believe he’s just a whole new person. It’s almost impossible to create whole new people. But, it’s also not possible to lose as much weight as Montero has without being committed. So there’s at least evidence of Montero doing something hard, where he didn’t just rely on his god-given talent. Talent makes you a professional; drive lets you stick.

Understand what we’re talking about here. Jesus Montero now weighs about 40 pounds less than the previous version of Jesus Montero. That would be fantastic, if the Mariners were competing for the Team Weight Loss World Series. Instead, they’ll be competing for the regular old baseball World Series. Ultimately, what we want is for Montero to be a better baseball player. His defense wasn’t just about his weight. His swing wasn’t just about his weight. His discipline wasn’t just about his weight. Jesus Montero wasn’t bad because he was heavy. A lighter version of Jesus Montero, with the previous Jesus Montero’s approach, will just suck a little more per pound.

But this lets you have a little hope about the other stuff. Montero has been committed enough for long enough to get into playing shape. That suggests he might also be committed enough for long enough to get better at the game he plays for a job. His body should also no longer hold him back as much, not that he’s suddenly going to not run like a refrigerator rolling down a hill. It seemed like, before, when Montero would receive instruction, it just bounced off of him, like hail on a windshield. Now, perhaps, the instruction will be more likely to stick, like mosquitoes on a windshield. That’s the dream, anyway. Again, one generally doesn’t become a good student overnight, but Montero didn’t do this overnight. He did it over dozens of nights, hundreds of nights, after having been reduced to a punchline.

Think about it this way: if Montero were to come all the way back, and turn himself into a legitimate big-leaguer, this would be the first step, if you were to start a few months ago. This first step could lead down any number of paths, but it’s tough to envision Montero headed down the right path without doing this first. Let’s say, he just got himself to the proper trailhead. He still has to go practically the whole rest of the way, but at least he’s not badly lost.

The Jesus Montero career resurrection. That’s what we want to believe in, because at this point anything from Montero would be like free money. This guy here, who lost weight? We already wrote him off. He’s a seed that didn’t sprout, and we planted a whole other garden. Now there’s a shoot emerging from the soil. And, conveniently, if Montero did work out to some extent, this very team has a place for him, as a partner at first with Logan Morrison. The bench kind of needs a righty-hitting pseudo-slugger, and maybe that’s Montero’s job. Maybe he can be the last piece.

Take it as far as you want to. Stretch it out. It’s Friday evening — no one’s going to mind. These Mariners, they look like a pretty good baseball team. A team that could win its division. A team that could win the whole thing. Now imagine Montero on the team. Imagine him on the playoff bench. Imagine him in the playoff lineup, against a lefty like, I don’t know, Clayton Kershaw or Madison Bumgarner or Aroldis Chapman or who knows who. Imagine Montero as a contributor. Imagine Montero as a postseason hero. Imagine him delivering one hit you’ll never forget as long as you live. One swing of the bat can earn a guy a ballpark statue. What if it’s October, and in the moment we love Jesus Montero like we love no one else?

It’s easy to dream, and dreams are pleasing, as long as you know that they’re dreams. Dreams usually don’t come true. But, Jesus Montero usually doesn’t lose 40 pounds. Why wouldn’t he be exactly the player to deliver the Mariners’ first-ever championship? I mean, it’s kind of obvious. You’d be a fool not to see it.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/01/23/jesus-montero-normal-sized-person/feed/0How Not To React To The Mariners Getting Mike Kickhamhttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/01/14/how-not-to-react-to-the-mariners-getting-mike-kickham/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/01/14/how-not-to-react-to-the-mariners-getting-mike-kickham/#commentsThu, 15 Jan 2015 06:30:06 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20737Hello friends. You might’ve noticed that, earlier today, the Mariners swung a trade with the Cubs, picking up left-handed pitcher Mike Kickham. So now you’ve thought to visit the incredibly popular and consistently updated USS Mariner blog to see how you’re supposed to feel about this. Which is kind of one of the main purposes of blogs, right? To tell people how to feel about things? I appreciate your visit, and I’ll do you one better, or one worse, or one lateral — I’ll tell you how not to feel about this. Here is a variety of ways not to react to the Mariners trading for Mike Kickham today.

Why be sarcastic? Why be sarcastic and upset about something so trivial? Is this how you reacted to the Mariners dealing Matt Brazis for Justin Ruggiano? Is this how you reacted to the Mariners bringing back Mark Lowe on a minor-league contract, which is a thing that they recently did? For one thing, not every move is made with the World Series in mind. For another thing, in the event that a team does win the World Series, you can always point to contributing moves no one really expected to be contributing moves at the time. Remember when the Mariners had Yusmeiro Petit in the system? No one cared when he went to the Giants. Turned into a popular guy.

Of all the different potential responses, this is the negative one. If this is your default, you’re probably just a negative person, and no one ought to have time for negative, overly critical people. However often you’ve been told that you’re unpleasant, countless other people have kept the same feelings quiet. And, wait a second, didn’t the Mariners sign Nelson Cruz for many years and too much money? Aren’t you exactly the sort of fan that move was supposed to placate? Bathe in the warmth of the Nelson Cruz acquisition, you unhappy son of a bitch.

“I think this means the Mariners are looking to trade Taijuan Walker, probably soon. Can’t be a coincidence.”

Mike Kickham’s major-league ERA has two numbers before the decimal. His Triple-A ERA is in the mid-4s, and he doesn’t throw enough strikes, and his fastball hovers around 89 – 90, and the Cubs just recently designated Kickham for assignment to make roster room for Chris Denorfia, who last summer looked like toast. This has no more to do with Taijuan Walker than the Mariners acquiring Sam Gaviglio had to do with Taijuan Walker. This is like saying signing Mark Lowe means the Mariners are looking to trade Fernando Rodney. You almost literally can never have enough pitching depth.

“Time to turn around and flip Kickham for Mike Napoli. Red Sox need some more starters.”

Mike Napoli, the last two years, has posted an .818 OPS. Mike Kickham, the last two years, in the major leagues, has allowed a 1.062 OPS. Kickham is with his third organization in a month. The Red Sox wouldn’t trade Mike Napoli for Mike Kickham. They would trade Mike Napoli for Mike Kickham and a player to be named later, where the player to be named later is actually named immediately and his name is Kyle Seager. That would be a bad move, IMO.

“Time to turn around and flip Kickham for Ryan Howard. Phillies need some more starters.”

I listened to the radio for about five minutes today, and during those five minutes, after Jack Zduriencik hung up from an interview, the hosts debated whether the Phillies had recently offered the Mariners Ryan Howard, because Zduriencik said he’d recently declined a trade for an expensive veteran that would’ve cost a couple young players. The hosts then praised Zduriencik for not agreeing to the deal, if it was in fact Howard, which was a complete and utter guess on their part, and not even a good one. So, in case you’ve been wondering whether you should listen to sports talk radio more, please find your answer in this paragraph. It’s not laid out explicitly, but you’re sharp enough to see it.

“I can’t believe the Mariners gave up Lars Huijer for this.”

Yes you can. The hardest part of this to believe is that the Mariners had a player in the system named Lars Huijer in the first place. Don’t even pretend like you’d ever heard of him before. Try to pronounce Huijer out loud. Like right now, wherever you’re sitting. I bet you stumbled over syllables and there’s not even anyone around you to check your work and call you out. What you can’t believe is that there’s a name that has an H and a U and an I and a J and they’re all in a row. Did you see that story about the two climbers topping out on the Dawn Wall in Yosemite earlier today? It was thought to be impossible, but they pulled it off, and you’re not literally in disbelief over it. You can believe that two climbers free climbed the Dawn Wall on El Capitan. And you can believe the Mariners gave up Lars Huijer for Mike Kickham.

“I guess if he’s no good, the Mariners can Kickham to the curb!”

I’m just kidding, this is a fine response. People get way too weird about puns. Puns are the new clowns. Everyone used to say they were afraid of clowns, but almost no one actually was. And now whenever there’s a pun someone has or someones have to stage some artificial freakout. People act like a pun is the worst thing in the world, like it’s the most horrible and offensive thing they’ve read in a month. You’re not offended, you’re just putting on a show, and here’s the deep dirty secret: we all actually think puns are fun. They are fun. Everybody is wrong about puns. No, let me amend that: everybody acts wrong about puns. They don’t act like they actually feel. People who freak out about puns are liars.

“What number is Mike Kickham going to wear?”

Are you buying a personalized jersey? Don’t buy a personalized jersey.

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]]>http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2015/01/14/how-not-to-react-to-the-mariners-getting-mike-kickham/feed/0Cynic’s Guide To Justin Ruggianohttp://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2014/12/31/cynics-guide-to-justin-ruggiano/
http://blog.seattlepi.com/ussmariner/2014/12/31/cynics-guide-to-justin-ruggiano/#commentsWed, 31 Dec 2014 21:03:03 +0000http://www.ussmariner.com/?p=20730This is based on a simple premise: the Cubs are smart. Well-run. Probably among the smartest, most well-run organizations in the game. They have an enviable, fairly proven front office, that we all believe is on the cutting edge of quantitative analysis. I think most Mariners fans would probably gladly exchange our front office for theirs. Now! Not everyone would agree with that suggestion, and if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine. I can’t make up your mind, and I don’t know everything about baseball. Sometimes I wonder if I know anything about baseball. But anyway, the premise, again: the Cubs seem like they’re really smart, and perhaps smarter than the Mariners. If you accept that, then we proceed.

A short while back, the Mariners picked up Justin Ruggiano from the Cubs, for a player no one had ever heard of. The Mariners needed a right-handed outfielder, and Ruggiano has looked mostly good when he’s played. He’s in his 30s, and he’s projected to cost about $2.5 million. When they dealt Ruggiano, the Cubs indicated they might not have had room for him.

The Cubs subsequently searched for a right-handed outfielder, available on the market. They just today signed Chris Denorfia, who you might remember as having just recently been a Mariner. Denorfia has looked mostly good when he’s played. He’s in his 30s, and he’s going to cost about $2.5 million. For the cost of Justin Ruggiano, the Cubs selected Chris Denorfia instead, and also added a minor-league reliever of not literally no note.

It seems like it’s simple: the Cubs just like Denorfia more than they like Ruggiano. Go back, now, to the premise — if the Cubs are smart, and smarter than the Mariners, then if the Cubs like Denorfia more than they like Ruggiano, what might that mean about Ruggiano? Do they think he’s about to collapse? Do they think he’s not worth anything in the clubhouse? Do they think Denorfia is about to bounce back? One notes that Denorfia was a 4-win player two seasons ago. One notes that Ruggiano just had a .375 BABIP, and his contact rate got worse. Denorfia seems like the better defender. Four years in a row, he was a good and underrated player.

So maybe the Mariners are missing something here. Maybe the Mariners got outsmarted by a top-tier organization. Now, there is the other side, too. Maybe Denorfia wasn’t at all willing to re-sign. Maybe the Cubs are wrong to prefer Denorfia to Ruggiano! Maybe the Cubs are right, but baseball’s unpredictable and Ruggiano will still perform better. Or maybe it just doesn’t matter, since we’re talking about a handful of runs from the light part of a corner-outfield platoon. The Mariners just got Seth Smith. Seth Smith is about to play a lot more baseball than Justin Ruggiano is. So, how much could it matter, really?

It’s not a big deal. Maybe it’s no kind of deal. But it got my attention. The Cubs gave a guy to the Mariners, then replaced him with an ex-Mariner on virtually identical terms. Seldom do I think things are laid out so simply. The Cubs preferred a different guy over the guy they already had. It appears like the Mariners thought the opposite. In truth it’s a little more complicated than that, but this is about as simple as it ever gets, and my gut feeling is that disagreeing with the Cubs will generally leave you on the wrong side of history. But maybe I’m being too nice to them. I tend to see the best in strangers.

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